Gurgaon cops’ turn to ‘fudge’ Reebok numbers

It was a zero too many. It rocketed Reebok India fraud next to the Rs 14,000-crore Satyam scam that tops India’s ‘blacklist’ of corporate misdemeanour and inflated the scale of the swindle 10 times over —from Rs 870 crore to Rs 8,700 crore.

It was a zero too many. It rocketed Reebok India fraud next to the Rs 14,000-crore Satyam scam that tops India’s ‘blacklist’ of corporate misdemeanour and inflated the scale of the swindle 10 times over —from Rs 870 crore to Rs 8,700 crore.

But, according to the Gurgaon Police, it was a “small printing mistake” in the FIR for which a computer operator (a constable) has been suspended.

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In the FIR registered at the Sector 40 police station late Monday against the sacked managing director Subhinder Singh Prem and COO Vishnu Bhagat of Reebok India, the Gurgaon Police put the forgery figure at Rs 8,700 crore instead of Rs 870 crore.

“We have corrected the small printing mistake in the FIR which was committed by the computer operator,” Gurgaon Police commissioner KK Sindhu said on Wednesday.

The complaint — a copy of which is with HT — filed by the law firm Kochhar & Company on May 10 says “..the Adidas Group will have to take a total hit of approximately Rs 870 crore in their books”.

Reebok India, owned by German sports giant Adidas, put the cost of the fraud at around Rs 1,357 crore, including a restructuring spend of Rs 487 crore.

Prem and Bhagat have been accused of forging records, stealing goods and creating ghost distributors across the country.

With agency inputs